?Amsterdam houses are built on wooden poles. Most were drilled in during the 17th century, which is why many Amsterdam houses tend to be crooked and leaning sideways….
☕ Coffee lovers! Amsterdam residents are the second largest consumers of coffee in the world, consuming around 3.2 cups of coffee per person, per day. So far we have avoided Starbucks here and have loved local coffee. ?
? Amsterdam is the most bicycle friendly city in the world. In fact, over 60% of trips are made by bicycle in the inner city. You should see it! It’s chaos but fun, healthy and environmentally friendly chaos.
Get this, there are over 813,562 people living within the city limits of Amsterdam, however it is estimated that there are well 1,000,000 bicycles. They say 10,000-20,000 bicycles end up deep in canals every year! .
Amsterdam is such a cool city. Some things I found awesome, some things are weird LOL, here is my list:
? AWESOME: Getting around the city is fast and easy, but the WEIRD thing about the Metro is that there’s train, sprinter and regular metro all departing from the same stations. At first we had no idea what mode of transportation to get on, but soon it got easier. There’re also people walking through checking everyone’s tickets, even though you wouldn’t be able to get in OR out of the Metro station without scanning your ticket ?
?WEIRD: As much as europeans are all for health, organic produce, etc etc, SO many people smoke! .
?AWESOME: Amsterdam is home to over 1200 coffee shops and cafes. Hands down coffee here is the BEST, same with local food. Everywhere we ate we thought the food wasn’t just good, it was delicious! Even freshly baked pastries from a local grocery store were mouthwatering. We have not had bad food experience here as long as we were able to sit down in one of the busy cafes. .
?WEIRD (and AWESOME? for some) is the smell of weed everywhere in the city centre. Weed cafes, weed cookies, brownies, lollipops, candies etc etc. .
?AWESOME (and WEIRD!) – you pay the price you see, tax is included, no need to do crazy math in your head lol Moreover, there’s no option to add tips at restaurants unless you leave cash (usually no more than 10% of the total bill) on the table.
